Forests, Freaks & Flu
by Prince of Leaves
Summary: Dean's not feeling too well but of course he insists he's great. Then it's too late to turn back when their deep in an awful forest and a terrible creature is intent on harming them. Hurt Dean. Caring Sam.
1. Chapter 1

Dean felt it creep up into his skin and leave a trail of bristling shivers. He wished he had destroyed it before it dealt its mean, mean hand, but it was a force that he couldn't twist round the neck and defy with any manner of weaponry resistance. It was always too late. The weather was too bad. The world would end.

-SPN-

He had been in the attic of an ancient freak who once had a hobby dealing in the unsavoury, when he first felt the soft swell at his throat and the prickle of panic that had nothing to do with the supernatural. Dean was a tough guy –so much tougher than Sam of course- but he had things that Sam didn't have, like allergic reactions. He brushed his sleeves hurriedly against spiders and cursed all kinds of bugs. There was small, but they were dangerous, and that made it ridiculous.

He poked around in corners to find some remnant of remains to burn but so far everything was coated in thick dark gritty warnings. He covered his nose with his hand and thought vaguely about a long time ago when a nurse had told him to carry one of those white masks, because they looked weak but they did help. Dean didn't want to look weak, that was a bit of a problem too. He didn't think Sam would mind, but Sam should not have a big brother who was more apprehensive of spring than ghosts.

Sometimes, he really was useless. It had been surreal watching Sam grow and grow, leave him behind in all kinds of ways. He should've been the one Sam looked up to, but then he was looking up at Sam and wondering how he could pull away the gluey something that stuck to his chest.

He found a wig which was probably a hundred years old. It was filled with maggots and other creatures, but it would burn all semblances of the ghost and leave him free to contemplate his morbid thoughts. He torched it and stamped the fire out. Another hunter would burn the abandoned rotten house down, but he was scared of house fires. Scared, scared, with the cough that crept up his chest when he was four and never quite left.

He sneezed violently. That was good. Sneezes are the best.

'Sam,' he yelled, 'all done.'

Then he heard a cough. It was like a curt nod from someone you wanted to impress. And it came from his chest. It twanged like a snapped string. He thumped his ribs, spat on the disgraceful floor of the attic and left. Sam, who was standing outside, waiting, looked at him.

'That was an old house,' he commented 'it was very dusty.'

'So?' Dean shrugged his shoulders.

'You must have inhaled at least a trunk's worth of the stuff.'

'Why does that matter?' he replied, irritated.

'I don't want you to get sick, Dean' continued Sam, because that's just how the real Sam was, very questioning about anything that concerned him and it was weird how Dean concerned him as easily he once did, like he was wearing an old jacket that fit him just right 'you should've let me go instead.'

'I'm fine,' Dean shrugged again, so calm, so confident, so many coughs that threatened his world. It was good Sam was here, good like the way the sun sneaks in through the gray coverlets of winter and you don't want it to leave, but he didn't like being sick when Sam was around. So he wouldn't be sick, no matter what sniffs demanded or the aches at his temples.

It was air. It was life. It should be effortless. It wasn't.

Dean felt the cough in his chest again and swallowed it somehow.

-SPN-

The next hunt was something slightly more serious. It involved a monster that could rip into abdomens and require faulty insurance after. It lurked in a damp forest inside a crusty cave and only appeared outside of its lair before dawn. That meant it would be windy, nippy, creepy and the right sort of case for serious hunters. Sam had found it and pronounced the creature's Latin name the same lisped way he had when he had learned it as a kid. It was cute and Dean smiled. Sam smiled back and didn't know why.

'This time you follow me' Sam said, 'because last time I followed you and that's only fair.'

'Are you crazy?' Dean snorted 'I always go first. That's the rule. I don't care if it's unfair.'

'That's your rule' Sam retorted, 'and I found this case and I want to face the danger first. I don't always want to be behind you. I also want to kill stuff.'

Dean thought it was unsettling to hear someone argue that they want to kill stuff too. It wasn't normally something Sam would say, but Sam was strange sometimes.

'Alright then, compromise' he said resignedly 'I still go first, but I don't kill the thing. I only hurt it slightly and then you slash its icky gore right out all over your big feet. Okay?'

'Not okay,' Sam said stubbornly and it occurred to Dean that Sam wasn't telling him everything. Sam didn't lead hunts unless Dean was bleeding and couldn't keep up. He hadn't expressed much of a discord to it before.

'Spill it,' he looked at his brother.

Sam hesitated. Dean coughed. It was a scratch, a jerk, a cleared throat, watery smile, Sam looking at him warily. Then he coughed from somewhere he didn't know existed, it was grating and rough and sandpaper. There was salt in his eyes and someone steadied the wheel.

'M&amp;M' he told Sam, when he could almost breathe and the kid was done blinking at him 'I don't chew properly.'

'Oh, alright, of course, that makes so much sense' said Sam, 'I remember that last pack of M&amp;Ms. There were only yellows left because you don't eat them.'

Then Dean knew why. Sam knew he was getting sick and Sam didn't trust him enough to lead this hunt. Oh no, that wouldn't happen. He was slick and fine, and he'd not only get them to the thingy, but he'd kill it too. A memorable hunt, that's what it would be, something to write about in his own journal one day.

His chest creaked and he told it no.

-SPN-

'This is the hardest trail to follow' Sam showed him the map. Creatures liked to live where it was most difficult to get to, sometimes venturing out there for a nibble, 'the caves are at the end.'

Dean did not want a hard track. He wanted the impala to have wings.

'Yeah, alright' he slung his backpack over his shoulders 'let's get to it.'

'You're not even all hyper and annoying,' Sam followed him 'I thought you wanted something exciting and dangerous.'

'I love this,' Dean snapped, but it sounded more like a sniff. He had been looking forward to it, but that was before it felt like there something bleeding inside his throat. He couldn't tell Sam though, because Sam was full of adrenaline and vengeance and hunting lust that made his eyes both wild and cold. Dean normally reveled in that, but now his eyes were itching and he wanted to rub them like he was six.

'We'll set a medium fast pace' his brother said companionably, 'be there about 23:48 and we'll have enough time to set out all the traps.'

'Yes,' said Dean, automatically stepping in front and knocking rocks and roots away.

'Have you got the silver bullets?'

Dean stopped. He wasn't sure, he couldn't remember, and the box had been there…Sam looked at him suspiciously; he could be so suspicious it was suffocating. They were already quite awhile away from the car. There was nothing to it. Either he check for the bullets and run back to get them, or get eaten.

'Dean?' Sam asked, 'you do have them right?'

He swung his backpack in front –ouch, chest- and rooted inside. There was definitely no silver bullet case. There was definitely death for Dean. He'd do his last heroic act, let Sam live and let the creature eat him.

'Dean?' Sam was nagging now. Dean sniffed.

'Okay, I know this legend' Sam took a deep breath 'where if you shoot it in the eye, it will die.'

'Even with a normal bullet?' Dean blessed Sam's brain.

'Let's hope,' Sam almost snarled, which was a good reaction to the situation.

They walked, less companionably now, the hours darkened, Dean tried to hide his coughs. He felt an ache nipping at his senses, when his senses should be aware enough to ward against malignant bugs, monsters and not let things eat Sam.

His skin itched. His collar strangled. His eyelashes were so heavy, they would fall off.

They were talking again.

'Do you know that there's some sea salt in everything?' Sam said, because he had all this random knowledge from watching quiz shows or whatever, 'it's because we were all sunken under water once.'

'Uh huh,' replied Dean. Sam looked at him for a moment. When they went hunting, Sam would speak about trivia or homework or whatever he wanted, and Dean would chirp in with the snarky comments and jokes.

'Isn't it cool' Sam spoke like he was rehearsing something instead of wanting to say it, like he was slightly worried, 'that we're sort of made of stardust? That means we sort of have some special planet stuff inside us.'

Dean didn't understand what Sam was saying, it didn't make a lot of sense.

'Also,' his brother was now next to him and he didn't know how that happened 'if you study our genetics…Dean!'

He tripped.

It was cold with his face on the ground and his eyes shut tightly like he would sink into the salty sand. Sam tapped him on the shoulder, asking him if he was alright 'give me your hand'. He didn't want to get up that quickly. He was uncomfortable, must've scraped his forehead, elbows and knees, but for some strange reason, it was good to just lie here.

He didn't want to give his hand to Sam, because that meant he needed help and he couldn't remember something this embarrassing happening to his father. He'd jump up and shrug, swear the log because it had deliberately gotten in his way and tell Sam to stop hovering.

'Dean,' Sam's voice was soft, concerned and scared. Everybody was duped into thinking was some innocent sweet scholar, but he was actually very strong and somehow yanked Dean up by his shoulder. Dean was startled.

'Hey, hey,' Sam said 'it's alright.'

'Okay,' he replied. He wasn't alright. His head throbbed unnaturally.

'You'll need stitches on that cut, idiot' Sam shook his head, like it was all Dean's fault there was a log in the way and they shared genes with Saturn and monsters existed and they were hunters 'you should've just told me.'

'Huh?' It seemed like such a conclusive word, there was no more need to have any other vocabulary.

'What else? That you weren't feeling too good.'

'I am feeling better than you,' Dean sniffed indignantly 'it's not my fault I don't have super freaky night vision eyes like yours. We'll get there and I'll slash that creature so hard it'll dissolve.'

'I'm an idiot,' Sam mumbled, obviously not listening to him, 'I should never have listened to you.'

'Don't blame yourself' Dean sighed, 'it's not your fault. There's no fault, just dumb trees.'

'We can't walk any slower,' he said apologetically.

Sammy was quite a sweet kid. Dean didn't know where he got it from.

'I'm sorry Sammy' Dean said quietly. He took a deep, deep, deep breath and felt his chest expand. That was better. They had to move and he would be in charge. He quickly wiped the blood from his forehead, and randomly wondered what type of detergent would get it off his warmest jacket.

It was a bit tricky to keep with the gigantic strides of his brother along with a stuffy chest, but he was determined to not fail himself and endanger his brother, so he did it. They finally came in view of the caves, rough grey stone with gaping black holes like evil sores. He shuddered.

They climbed the crumbling rocks till a vantage position and Sam set up the guns. He was a better shot than Sam, and since they probably only have two chances at the most, he'd have to do it. Only, he wanted to throw up.

Stop it, stop it, stop it, he told his head, stop pounding like that.

'Take a quick nap,' Sam told him, which meant he was looking like cream cheese, because they never did something absurd as nap when hunting monsters this dangerous.

'I can't,' he mumbled and Sam shook his head. It really wasn't because he was being stubborn, just that he wanted to be sick and his head was full of fudge and the world was ending.

'Oh God,' he heard Sam mutter 'it's already up. Grab your rifle.'

Dean obeyed. He looked through the lenses. It was a dinosaur with forty rows of shark teeth and the claws of a griffin. He'd never seen anything like it. Sam swore.

It swiped the rocks, the mountains shuddered and then there was nothing.

It was a bad nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

The rocks shook and the caves groaned, revengeful children against gun bearers.

Dean thought that sometimes things didn't quite make sense, like when bones had feelings. Bones were to make his legs walk into gas stations all over the states and run through the greasy claws of sadness that always wanted to grab him away. They weren't supposed to ache and hurt.

The pain made his arm a vague length that couldn't be measured. He felt it everywhere and somewhere, but didn't know where exactly nature had been twisted. Sam would probably be his willing doctor and end up diagnosing a sprain. He did that sometimes, in his calm firm voice.

Sammy cared. Sam sometimes squinted at him that said 'why Dean, why'.

Sam. The thought of his brother was a shot of adrenaline. He had to get up and rescue him.

There was sticky gum in his eyes and if eyes had taste-buds, this wouldn't be bubblegum flavored. After a moment he realised it was blood. Sam would say stitches and click his tongue, and Dean would think his blood was metallic tinged sour-sweet.

He grappled for his gun. This was his worst hunt in the history of the universe. He was failing Sam in all kinds of ways and all he ever wanted to do was get the kid back to his research kingdom scratch free. That was never going to happen, seeing as his brother was probably dead now. They were all going to die, but in a cave?

That was wrong. There should be some dignity even in the death of a hunter.

'Sam?' he croaked, 'Sammy!'

The worst silences are always the loudest.

The only motion seemed to come from inside the cave. There was something that kept swatting at the stone, making it rattle. He could imagine it slashing his brother with its teeth, ribbons of plaid shirt scattered. He'd have to go down.

The climb was uneventful but painful, his left arm yelping when he reached an awkward hold. His first steps on ground crunched over thin white twigs that looked suspiciously like bones. Further in, it was all so dark, it made him dizzy. Dean didn't like dark spaces, they were claustrophobic and crackling, as if the color thinned out the air.

He breathed in, out and ventured deeper. The swatting had quietened.

Dean remembered that the creature was a cousin of the lizard and that the tail could be alive, but it could be dead because there wasn't any evil grunting. Sam could've gotten his wish and killed it all by himself, unless he'd been killed too.

'Sam?' he whispered. Sniffed.

Something trembled, twitched. He held the gun tighter and felt the imprint of patterned mettle on his palms.

'Dean!' it was an exclamation once born within a child, still lasting. He could interpret it. Sam always seemed so young when he said his name, something of a plea, something of a warning. The way Sam said it somehow got through his heart.

He felt lukewarm cave air swift through him and a murderous tail's final swipe. Blood spluttered that could be read by cavemen as 'the sign of a battle'. A weapon fired, twice.

'Whiplash' he spat.

* * *

'What happened?' Dean asks, once Sam sits next to him like it's a picnic. They could chew on the stick bones for starters.

'I think it was drawn to your flu' Sam begins, 'because it went straight for you.'

'I don't have flu' he interrupts angrily, like saying it would take it away.

'Everyone in this forest can hear you sniffing' Sam shrugs, 'it knocked you down and you didn't get up. I waited. So I had to save myself all by myself.'

'Didn't mean it,' Dean mumbles, wishing he could blame fate instead of himself, but it always feels like his fault 'it hits fierce.' Dean picked up a rock and flicked it at the massive tail. It looked the way it was supposed to, like the sketch in the journal. 'It doesn't even have shark teeth or the claws of a griffin. Does it change or something?'

'What are you talking about? It looks exactly like the one we hunted back when I was sixteen. Wait, were you hallucinating?'

'I wasn't anything,' Dean snaps, feeling a sort of spicy panic 'continue, caveman.'

'I shot it a few times, but of course it wouldn't die, because it only dies by silver bullets,' Sam looks at him balefully, 'so when it had decided that you were mostly done for, it went back. I'm creeping up to it, when I remember I have my silver knife. Any kind of silver might work. It feels like the thing you would do, be resourceful, so I throw it at its heart and it hisses.''

'Then it turns around and you shoot it in the eye.'

'Yes, one in each, and it just falls, rolls up,' Sam grins, like he's talking about a good movie 'but then its tail gets violent.'

'You shouldn't have followed it Sammy. You might've been killed,' Dean says worriedly, like it's still going to happen.

'I'm alive' Sam clasps Dean's arm gratefully. Maybe they both would've died years ago –given up- if it weren't to live for each other. Dean's distracted for a moment. His arm shudders and sends flickering signals to his brain.

The good thing about an absorbing trouble is that it shuts off other symptoms. Now Sam's here, the monster's dead and his head will throb, throb again. The hallucinations were not a very bright sign. Dean knows it, doesn't want Sam to know it too.

'I wasn't afraid of the tail, more that it would make a rock cascade crush me,' Sam continues, 'but you had your silver knife. So I either had to grab my knife back or wait for you.'

'So I saved your life,' Dean smirks or a weak effort of it that makes it look suspect, 'if I hadn't been smashed against this wall and my knife fly across the room to you, then you'd be the late Sam Spelunker.'

Sam snorts. Dean sees the cave walls getting closer and closer, claws closing up around him.

'I mostly saved yours,' Sam nudges him. It's always been some kind of a game between them, a count of scores. Dean mostly wins. Sam can save the world, Dean will save Sam. The night is heavy now, and cold, his eyelids closing. He's caught, can't move.

'You okay?'

'Stop asking me that.'

The story seems too tight, suddenly.

'Let's get out of here,' Sam stands up too quickly and he's so far, far away, so tall, Dean doesn't understand him for a second.

'It's dark,' Dean says vaguely.

'I know' Sam sighs. He should've remembered Dean was sick, instead of wanting to tell him the tale right that moment. It was just that it felt sort of nice, Dean listening to him tell all the exciting bits for once. He still hadn't got to the part where Dean would say 'you did good Sammy'.

Praises are always worth collecting. Precious knick-knacks other kids hoarded, Sam and Dean remembered each others' words.

Sam yanks Dean up, a bit rougher than he intended, but he needs him out before he blanks out completely. Dean's hot and sticky behind his collar, the fever creeping up already. There's blood on Sam's fingers. Dean had seemed so aware that he didn't think he'd had a head injury.

'Why do you always insist you're fine?' Sam frowns, 'you didn't tell me your head's cut.'

'Double times,' Dean mumbles.

'You broke your arm?' Sam sounds exasperated, like Dean does it deliberately to annoy him.

'I don't think so. It doesn't matter.'

'Nothing does,' he rolls his eyes, 'only that you're a lot of muscle and I don't want to carry you.'

'And then you saved your brother. Again,' Dean monotones.

Outside, Sam mutters a lot. Dean would mind and feel sorry, but there's air and light and he can open his eyes. He sits for a moment, cross legged on the ground, with ants crawling up his arms and thinks how good it is not to be a bat.

Dean feels it before it blurs the skies. He holds a fist over his chest, his other hand on top.

'I saw it on the weather channel' Sam's there, guns slung all over him, 'figured a light summer rain wouldn't hurt.'

They've hunted in winter, falling ice slicing through their eyelashes and into their brains. They've been swamped in downpours and sloshed in sudden rivers. A light summer rain is actually wonderful.

It would be refreshing but now another imagined invisible storm, almost theatrical, threatens. A chest determined to be more dramatic than the clouds. Dean's coughing before his hair gets wet.

The guns click against each other. Sam rubs his brother's back.

* * *

'Imagine if rain was salty,' Dean wonders, 'because if it was, my cuts would sting.'

'It can't be. It would upset the equilibrium.'

Sam's always worried about equilibriums. Dean thinks about yellow boots and jumping in puddles so brashly, it soaks everyone when they've just lowered their umbrellas. The rain feels endless and rushed, jelly-like when it settles on his shoulders and then it sifts through his jacket, prickling into his skin.

'How are you?' Sam asks fervently, like the answer will change this time.

Dean's been saying okay, okay, stop asking, but it won't stop raining, and lies seem wet.

'Cold' he chews his lip. Random thoughts drop of leaves. It seems like there's so much rain, they could use a raft. He wants to visit the sea someday soon. If he lived two hundred years ago, he would've made a great pirate. There's gum in his eyes again. He wants to close them.

'Dean, you can't drift off, you have to stay awake,' Sam would've put his arm around his shoulder, but its quagmires and dripping branches, so they have to walk single file. It's a Winchester only war. As usual.

'I don't like it' Dean sighs, 'I don't like the rain.'

'I don't like it either,' Sam tugs on Dean's sleeve.

'Not that rain,' he insists, forgetting he shouldn't say this out loud 'the one inside my chest.'

'Don't say that,' Sam snaps, even though he doesn't want to. Dean rarely gets ill but when the fevers eventually erupt in his lungs, it isn't blankets and Gatorade. A hospital is the more logical conclusion.

'Don't be scared Sammy,' Dean's voice is somehow clear, all around the forest, holding up Sam's courage through the sludge, 'it'll be okay.'

'We're almost by the Impala. Hang on,' Sam replies gratefully, like Dean's told him some kind of secret spell. Dean has no idea why, but it almost always works. It's weird with Sam sometimes. He either trusts Dean with all his heart and or refuses to look at him, like he suddenly isn't a Winchester anymore.

They trudge. It rains.

'We need sun,' Sam kicks away another branch. Now he wishes Dean was ahead and clearing the path, 'careful, step this way, stupid falling trees.' Wait, there it is, their panther. It's waiting for them, a crouching predator. He'll never tell Dean, but sometimes the Impala seems almost real.

He's never going into that forest again.

'There's star wars behind my eyes,' Dean's almost incoherent now.

'How is it possible for you to get all kinds of sick in one day?' Sam mutters and yanks open the door, helps Dean inside. He tugs off Dean's boots, wrenches off the jacket. Dean does make some kind of argument to drive, which means he isn't that ill, or it's probably because he wants Sam to know he's mostly alright. He's always doing that.

It doesn't matter if there's cracks in his skull 'its' okay Sammy' makes it almost all better.

Sam switches on the car, glances at his brother and gulps. Dean's holding his knees, and the coughs swell, fall and sound like a half formed teenage band playing inside Dean's chest.

Sam catches a soft word, 'hurts.'

He feels it too.


	3. Chapter 3

The rain hadn't let up yet. It had turned into a soft drizzle, patterning onto the windscreen. If Sam hadn't spent the better part of what seemed like his life in it, he would think it was actually soothing. Dean was restless next to him, shifting wetly in his seat and coughing sporadically. Sam resorted to driving one handed, rubbing Dean's back with the heel of his hand.

'How far away are we?' Dean croaked out each word, which reminded Sam of sudden Latin exams, in eerily quiet moments, in the middle of night hunts. Oh, dear father.

'About a half an hour,' Sam answered. Since some part of Dean was probably made of asphalt, the only time he'd ever ask that was when he really wasn't feeling well. The fact that he was admitting it –in code, nonetheless- made Sam wonder if there was a hospital nearby. Water dripped down his hair and behind his collar. He shivered.

'The heat,' Dean mumbled 'it's good.'

Sam squinted at his brother for a second.

'You liar,' he retorted. There was no way the heat was helping clear Dean's lungs. It was making the air dry and stuffy, and the only reason it was on right now was because they needed to get warm.

'I'm going to die soon, mostly by a bullet, but at the moment with a chest infection or by not breathing,' Dean's voice strained, in an effort to be serious, 'but you're going survive. So it's worthless you getting sick.'

'Shut up,' Sam growled. The problem with Dean and his offhand comments about his death had always irked him. Dean didn't take his life seriously enough and it was evident from the time Sam could take care of himself. Sam could imagine Dean being so reckless without his little brother around, that he was probably disappointed when he was still alive.

Dean coughed. Sam thwacked Dean on the head and didn't feel sorry about it.

'If you don't care, I definitely do care about you dying,' Sam snapped, knowing it wasn't the right time to be having this conversation, but then again, it was never the right time with them 'so you can die after I'm dead!'

He had committed Winchester sacrilege. There were all sorts of topics that weren't supposed to be broached, but death was an absolute no-go. If they didn't speak about it, it meant that they hadn't reached depths which no other human would consider thinking about when it came to dying family members. The Winchesters were perfectly peachy, as long as they kept quiet.

So the comment was sharp enough for Dean to snap his head around, ignoring the lights swirling angrily behind his vision for a second, and stare at him. The rain had sunken Dean's cheeks a cold blue, and his eyes were rimmed red with fever. Sam pressed down on the accelerator.

'You are not dying,' Dean would've yelled, Sam was sure, but it came out in a soft whine, like he was pleading, and that only made it worse. The effort and emotion caught in his chest, and the next breath got lost somewhere between getting by and desperation. Sam could hardly keep his attention on the road when Dean's lungs sounded like they were bubbling blood. He should never have said a word. Sharp wheezes caught static in the sticky air of the car.

'Dean,' Sam whispered, 'calm down.'

'Sammy, you can't,' Dean drew the words through his torn soul, unlocked from a copper box in his heart, out of the corner of his bitten bottom lip, 'promise.'

'I promise Dean, I promise,' he replied without a second thought, full of sincerity and hope. He had always known it, but this was the first time he'd said it out loud. He would do anything for his brother. He would never let him down. Dean needs him to promise. Dean needs him.

Dean's chest hitched, like a toddler who has cried loudly and boldly and is now too exhausted to herald the thought of anything more.

Later, Sam will feel the ice at the edges of his promise, which he knows, deep down, is an untruth. Neither he nor his brother can control their deaths, no matter the promises they have always kept; told or not. Dean insists there are still ways, but then there are consequences, and Sam has never liked those.

* * *

Dean is as asleep as a sick person can be, sniffling and shifting uncomfortably. Sam wants to leave him, let him sleep for hours and days, because he always thinks Dean needs more sleep. It's another thing he nags his brother about, even though Dean never listens. There's a reason Sam continues asking. Once, Dean was always telling him what to do when he was a teenager, 'Sam eat your breakfast, Sam lower your arm that way it's safer, Sam always keep quiet when dad's in a mood' but Sam never listened and told Dean to stop bossing him around like he was still a kid.

One day, Dean kept quiet, and all it did was leave a dull hurt. It felt like Dean didn't care anymore. He has this feeling Dean thinks he cares a lot less about him, than he cares about Sam. It isn't true. He can say it to Dean a hundred times, in so many words, but there is always that reserve, that fear, a wariness where Dean doesn't absolutely trust Sam's love.

He feels he needs to earn it, but that aggravates him. Dean should inherently know that his little brother loves him a bit too much.

Sam had learnt that there were too many kinds of hurts. There were his broken bones and bullet wounds and then there were Dean's broken bones and bullet wounds. There was remorse and deep, twisting guilt, and loss and strangling worry, and it seemed like every kind had attached itself to him like sea urchins. When he thought there could be no more, he learnt of yet another one.

Sometimes, he hated his life so very terribly. On occasion, he had thought about jumping off a bridge or something more effective, but sadly, he'd also promised his comatose, coughing brother, not many minutes ago, that he'd live.

'Sam?' Dean coughs out.

Sam sighs. He doubts Dean can see properly. His eyes are half glued shut and it doesn't look healthy. He puts a hand over Dean's shoulder and they shuffle into the motel, bedraggled, wet and shoe-less, like they've crawled in from another century. And to think that yesterday they were referred to as, 'that's how the young men of our society should all look.'

The motel is run by a woman with a rifle slung on her side. The site is not uncommon and it hadn't bothered them, since a lady should always have a weapon or two to defend her property and her plaid shirt. What is uncommon, and disorientates them both, is that she tells Sam he can use another room's shower. This has not, in the millions of motels they have stayed in before, ever occurred.

Sam thinks about demon possession for a second and then decides he'd risk his life with a demon than stay cold for another second. He helps Dean off with his shirt, then his t-shirt, then a long sleeve t-shirt, which Dean had obviously worn because he'd known, the twat, that he wasn't feeling well, but instead decided to spend decades traipsing all over the forest. Then he switches the shower heat to bearable steaming and tells Dean he'll see him in a short while.

'Is your ear alright?' Dean asks, it sounds like it's coming through his nose, since his mouth has been switched for breathing purposes.

'You can hardly see, but you're asking me about my ear?' he avoids the question, because his ear feels like it's caught a cold itself, and he wants to ignore it. 'How do you even know?'

Dean rolls his eyes and huffs at the same time, which has been his perpetual expression to anything Sam is supposed to know the answer off. At least, he tries too, but ends up coughing.

'I'm going to go to the chemist too, so sit tight,' Sam runs his hand through his hair worriedly. Dean's cough is getting worse quicker than it should. It's not as wild as it was earlier, but it's now deep and wretched, making Dean's eyes water and his fist scrunch up.

'Leave the impala,' Dean uses his second of respite to be sarcastic, the jerk.

Sam waits until he can hear Dean in the shower, in case he does something like faint before it, because he still has that head injury, and realises his damp clothes have settled into his skin, years of having to wait to be next in turn.

'Don't' cough 'be' cough 'too' cough 'long' cough 'Sammy.'

* * *

It was alright when he got back, laden with flu meds, something for his ear –of course it wasn't bad at all, but maybe for some other time- and an inhaler, which he hoped they didn't need, because Dean was supposed to have outgrown them ages ago. Dean was sitting on the floor -in sweatpants and Sam's t-shirt- leaning on the wall, because the bed that was two steps away was as near to him as the end of the world was.

Sam sat next to him and checked the cut on the back of his head. It only needed four stitches and Dean was mostly asleep, so he didn't wince. Better yet, he didn't try his poker face, which meant that it really did hurt, but he was trying to be John Winchester.

Sam plied Dean with cough syrup and then he yanked him to the bed closest to the door, because God forbid he slept in the one nearer to him, since that was Sam's bed, and so would rather sleep on the carpeted floor, which was…carpet.

Carpet and coughs don't exactly go well together.

Sam's bed, which was a step away, suddenly seemed so very far away from Sam, so that they both sat on Dean's bed and promptly fell asleep. He wakes up when Dean's skin is singeing his arm. It doesn't take an algorithm to know that Dean's fever is blistering badly but a thermometer will make Sam feel better.

'Open your mouth Dean,' he orders.

'No,' says Deans, and opens it anyway.

Sam checks the thermometer and decides Dean's fever is infuriating, because it's not going down but keeps threatening to go up and he is shivering so much that his bones are going to poke out through his pale, almost see-through skin.

'You look so awful,' Sam comments unkindly.

In an effort to reply, Dean's voice is caught in his throat and he's gasping for air, clutching Sam's arm like its tethering him to earth. Sam tries to remember that he shouldn't say a single confrontational word when Dean's threatening to choke himself to death.

'Stop it dude,' he tries, as if it's psychological.

Dean isn't stopping, almost like it's deliberate. Sam thumps his back with more strength then he should and thinks Dean's whimpering because there's going to be bruises on his spine. Sometimes he forgets just how incredibly, naturally strong he is.

'Wait,' he says after a second, 'tell me you didn't bruise your ribs too.'

Dean looks sorrowfully at him, with eyes as large as a hopeful kitten's. It's ironic how he's apologising for his own pain.

'Your fault,' Sam wants to say something rude but you can't tell Dean anything when he looks at you like that. Mostly, he's getting that itching worry, because he's helpless.

Should he call an ambulance? Should he give Dean another Tylenol?

'Blanket,' Dean manages to say, letting go off Sam's arm and falling back.

Sam savours the (wheezy) silence for a wonderful few moments. Then he recalls Dean's request and blatantly refuses. Dean stares at him balefully with his cheekbones, because Sam knows Dean's expressions even with his eyes closed.

'We need to get your fever down, not roast you,' he says through his teeth. Reluctantly, he gets off his bed (or Dean's rather) and soaks the last towels in icy cold water and lays it on Dean's head and arms. Then he switches the AC onto frigid, and thinks that it's really not very good for his ear.

He supposes everybody gets those too high fevers that come crashing down at 5am and all they'll have to do is wait it out. It's only another all-nighter worrying about Dean's organs and he's mostly used to that.

Still. It doesn't matter how many times he's waited for Dean to be in the clear, it gets to him every time. It's all kinds of exhausting. He puts all the pillows under Dean's head and his back and it might help, if Dean didn't keep moving around.

And the fever won't go. He uses ice from the mini fridge, soaks the towels a more few times, decides that the last resort will be to find a bucket full of ice and dunk his brother in it. Also, it's logical if he sits with Dean, seeing as he doesn't have keep getting up to take his temperature. He might snag a quarter of pillow too.

He is just so tired.

'Go sleep Sammy,' Dean croaks out.

'I can't,' Sam mumbles, automatically reaching to touch Dean's forehead 'it's amazing you're not smoking yet.'

'Bad for my chest,' Dean shifts again, and his arms are so hot now, too hot, abnormally hot, that it makes Sam jump up, knock his knee on the dresser and reach for the phone. He can't fix this.

'Sam, no' Dean says angrily, which is really unfair, 'I'm fine.'

'You're sick,' he holds the phone, numbers punched in 'your fevers almost too high.'

'That doesn't mean I'm in danger. Half an hour more and you call,' and Dean, even though he sounds like he's speaking a foreign language, is still easier to listen to. 'Come sit back down.'

'My ear,' Sam says sleepily, because Dean's in charge again and he can let his guard down.

Sam knows Dean's looking at him crossly, but they can argue later. He won't fall asleep, Dean's coughing too loudly and shivering too much for anyone in the motel to get a half an hour of sleep.

-SPN-

He wakes up when he hears a thump. Dean's not next to him. It takes him a moment to notice that Dean's on the floor and the stitches on his head have all opened. There's blood dripping onto his nape.

It's the first time in the past 24 hours that Dean's breathing has quietened down to normal.

A bit too quiet, perhaps.


	4. Chapter 4

Once, when a young Dean had tried to fix an old engine, he'd tightened and tightened the bolts with a heavy wrench, until his small hands were red and sore. That's how his chest felt. There's a wrench around his lungs, twisting and twisting.

Sam's asleep. Dean tried to wake him up, a wheeze and a gasp, a sharp elbow, a yank of hair. This would be his last memory of his brother, he thought forlornly. Sam oblivious to Dean, the same way he was when they first met. Then, he'd gently poked his tiny brother on the shoulder, but Sam had ignored him quite meanly. On the way back home with dad, he'd felt quite hurt by Sam's indifference.

As soon as Sam was old enough to recognize Dean as his savior, it was like communicating through a stream of wires, words and thoughts seamlessly flowing through. One day, Sam decided that Dean wasn't worth the hero's cape, he began cutting some of the wires, fraying them, the sparks marking more freckles onto his skin.

Now, the wires are a web, tangled and taut, with the hazardous secrets entwined through them sometimes short-circuiting and shocking him. He has always dealt with life by fighting any way he can, and its how he's managed to survive through somewhat of a tumultuous childhood. Now, he doesn't know what to fight. It's Sam who worries him, but he can't fight Sam.

Maybe he's slightly scared of his brother. Sam's a giant who can spin a knife like he's trained with a secret force, and sometimes when Dean sees him ending something or the other, he's in awe of how lethal Sam can be. Then there's Sam's mind…and the tricks it can twist.

Sam seems as harmless as a rabbit now, mouth half open and chin against Dean's shoulder. He mumbles something about a Taurus and pasta. It's not a bad dream to have, Dean thinks admiringly. It would, of course, be better if there was a cute chef in there and much better if he'd wake up and help him somehow. 'Sam,' he whispers, voice caught in his ribs. Sam responds, in the low howl of a lost wolf cub, 'Dean…' It slithers up his spine and bites at his nerves, because even if he can't breathe, Sam's the one who sounds traumatized.

He shouldn't have to be. Dean feels failure curl around his chest, grasping it vehemently. Somehow, he swings his legs off the bed, feeling as if he's dropped from a beyond the clouds altitude. He wants to fall to the floor, but Sam needs him, so he has to go on. He isn't quite sure what he's going to do, but maybe if he gets to the bathroom, he could set it on full steam, until they float away like a hot air balloon. It seems like he's breathing through his ears, because his mouth and nose are sticky with the gum you get from trees.

His ribs ache. The rocks marred them with bruises, and the coughs snipped at them. Tethered to the earth only by Sam's breathing, he takes a step.

He considers it quite the triumph when he adds three more steps to his life achievements. Then the room is spinning within the world's orbit. Dean can see the continents swoop around him, like tropical birds in fanciful crazily bright colors. He finds South America and Australasia, and in fascination, reaches forward to grasp the whirlwinds of his imagination.

He feels near salvation, but there are hoards of people knocking on his skull, making his brain clang. He clutches the sides of his head, and counts the nanoseconds before he blacks out.

* * *

'Dean, Dean,' Sam says, under his tongue and with his eyes and between his fingers 'Dean.'

He swipes his phone off the dresser, the inhaler with the other and trips over his shoes. He could turn it into a cartwheel if there was more space, right over his comatose brother, out of the door, off the edge of the world, but he falls on his knees, knocking one into Dean's side.

'Sorry,' he winces. It could've worked –if he'd planned it- so that Dean would yelp awake and call Sam all sorts of names that didn't make sense, and instead of glaring at him, Sam would happily get the first aid kit.

Then they'd go back to sleep. He'd been dreaming about a girl eating taglatellia.

Inconsiderately, Dean doesn't respond. Sam runs his hands over Dean's pulse and through his hair, which is blond as sunlight at the roots, across his cheeks, and along the cut. He leaves bloody fingerprints on Dean's white t-shirt, gripping his shoulders to turn him around.

'I hate you,' he whispers, 'Dean, I hate you.'

Dean's lips are indigo.

He clutches the inhaler as if it'll help Dean by his own willpower. He wants to breathe for Dean. They've always been telepathic, there has to be some way. Sam and Dean, cells fused; a new being.

'I don't want you to die today,' he swirls the vinegar words around his mouth, 'I don't want to die today.'

That wakes Dean up, because God forbid, Sammy be damaged in anyway. Dean should know though, that Sam is upset about this, that it hurts Sam too, that he must not get this sick, because Sam feels sick too.

'Sammy…' Dean's eyes are flickering candlelight on a winter's eve.

'Breathe for me, Dean, breathe…' he clasps Dean's neck tightly, wants to memorize Dean's pulse. Dean gasps; teeth snapped wide open for a second and then shut with a harsh click. His eyes roll into time immemorial and his life sighs into Sam's palm.

Sam's feels like his ear tingles with bee stings, while he calls 911.

* * *

They were taught to leave ER's for when they could almost be considered as organ donors. Sam was all for it, leaving his heart for Emily and his kidney for Juan. Dean wasn't so sure. They were his organs, written 'D.W.' in bold, invisible print all over them and he didn't want his lungs to end up in some middle aged, egotistical, obese, khaki loving, romantic movie watching, man across the continent.

Once, Sam had wondered briefly if somebody might have to donate a set of lungs to Dean. It was sort of selfish, he supposed, but he wanted them fresh and new, from a person without sin, who'd died too young in a car accident.

Now, despite the blood that keeps trickling down Dean's back –which is worrying Sam, incidentally- there's hardly enough to warrant calling an ambulance. Dad would scoff at all of it, because obviously Sam could've handled it all cut and square, as if it were a puzzle. Dean would be ashamed of his mortality, as if he'd rather be made of Lego. Sam, however, doesn't care about appearance, he only cares about Dean.

'Dean?' he asks hopefully. He measures his hand with Dean's, the way he did when they were kids, only now he has, as Dean calls them, 'paws' and Dean's hands are normal and neat, with engine oil on the edges of his thumbnail.

The first paramedic shoves his hand away and the other has an oxygen tank, strapping the mask over Dean's mouth and nose. The string snaps against Dean's cheek and Sam flinches for him, because he's serious about brotherly solidarity.

He waits for the mask to become as misty as morning, but it stays frigid and clear and Sam wants to hyperventilate and slick his knife under Dean's nose instead, because he'll breathe on the silver and that'll mean his absolutely alive. Weapons don't lie.

He tries to zone in onto Dean's lullaby humming pulse and hoping it will start beating crazy rock any second. He isn't sure if Dean's solemn or he's just dying.

'Sir,' says the lady paramedic, and Sam's not sure who she's addressing, 'what's your name?'

'Dean,' Sam stutters.

'You're both Dean?'

Sam hesitates. He has mirrored Dean's fight stances until they synchronize. He has pancakes with too much maple syrup, because Dean's always had them like that. He cleans his guns the way Dean does, efficient and involuntarily humming rock. He mimics Dean's Latin accent, because that's how he supposes the extinct language has always sounded. He drives and brushes his teeth and cooks spaghetti, the way Dean does.

And Dean has always been slightly quirky in the mundane, so Sam has made this his normality. As if everyone else in the world is doing it the wrong way, except Sam and Dean.

Maybe they are both Dean.

'I'm Sam,' he says 'he's Dean.'

'You've said his name about a million times,' the other paramedic grunts.

'Dean,' Sam repeats, like he's two and doesn't know any other word. He doesn't understand why Dean's chest is as still as a grave stone. He waits for Dean's ghost to throw an arm around his shoulder and sigh, 'Sammy, forget about me. Go back to sleep.'

Yes, of course he can look after himself. He'll be technical about life, following its essential doctrine and asking nothing more from it. He won't have anyone to get him coffee with frothy milk or hide his laptop so he can get some sleep. He needs Dean's attention to the details of his existence, which truly, if nothing else, make it easier to live.

'Why aren't you helping him?' Sam fidgets.

'He's losing pulse,' the paramedic is shouting.

Then their giving him adrenaline and shoving him into the ambulance and Dean is still.

The world's in pause. Sam wants Dean to come back and press play.


	5. Chapter 5

There's oxygen in his brain. There's air in his lips, eyelashes, knee caps, vertebra and veins. He remembers pockets of cold distance, moments of imagined sobs. He can't do that anymore. He can't stop breathing. He can't. He doesn't want to ever, ever, feel those iron fingers crushing his lungs like that again.

He has to keep still.

They haven't figured it out yet, but there's something wrong with his neck. Whenever he moves it, it does this weird thing where it sends him into oblivion. It's a trick he'd like to keep in the trunk. All the time though, that's inconvenient. He has better things to do. He has to talk Sam.

Then again, he always has to talk to his brother.

Sam's locked himself onto the chair, somehow managing to tuck elbows and wrists and knees and ankles into a hard square of plastic. Maybe they make them specifically so that you shouldn't sit down. You have to suffer standing. It sounds like one of Dad's rules. Keep your game- face on till the end, son. Sam isn't wearing the game-face. He was never one for that actually, always liked to wear his emotions indignantly, like he was the only one in the world who had them.

Dean listened to Dad. He knows how to hide, to keep anger and fear and pride and hurt, knotted into the corners of his years. Sometimes, when his façade falters, his emotions become questions on his skin, awkward and prickly. Sam translates them all into fear. As if Dean is incapable of being anything but a side of common wisecracks.

He means it when he smiles though. He'll tell Sam that.

Sam, sitting next to him and his dark locks are full of silent letters. Dean can read the words, 'he can't' at the paramedics, 'breathe' into his ear. He notes the minutes which fell anti-clockwise and the breaths that snapped like string. He'll give Sam a haircut. Snip away at the trauma, brush away the curls. Maybe he doesn't know much, but he knows Sam. At least, he knows Sammy.

It's all underwater and he's etched into a painting.

Dean doesn't mind the life, because it is him, the rough sunsets that scratch his skin and the velvet drive of the Impala. He does mind it for Sam though. Sometimes, Sam really doesn't know what he's thinking about. It isn't carburettors and starlets. It's too much angst to contemplate, too much self torment to comprehend. As much as Dad tried to wrench it out of him, Dean knows that he is weak. If he was a soldier, he would've told Sam to go and live life, to one day share it with a son who ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

Sam could have a bed carved out of a tree trunk so he can actually sleep, not to be a box of limbs sticky-taped to a hospital chair. Soldiers are supposed to suffer. Sam isn't the soldier and he's the one suffering.

He should say sorry. He'll have to make a list. Sam probably has these offences all written down, not expecting the apology, but wanting it. Dean will own up to his other mistakes, but its torment when it comes to making confessions to Sam. He'll tease his brother, asking for mercy.

A nurse walks in. He'll call her Hilda. She's humming and so Dean supposes it's the new morning shift. He knows hospitals and they all work the same. Her palm is on his forehead. She says 'sweetheart, you're too warm' but she has to be lying, because he's drowning and it's cold.

Mom used to say he'd prefer living in the bath. He likes lakes, as cool as mirrors. Water doesn't judge. He isn't Dean Winchester, burdened with scars, he's a three year old blowing bubbles or a yellow rubber duck.

Sam had never really liked swimming. He was a child born on an endless road-trip, dreaming of a promised land. He'd watch his brother with reluctant fascination. Dean, who wanted to swim endlessly, who once swam so deep into the silver shafts of light in a lake somewhere south of somewhere else, he had to be pulled out. Sam hitting his shoulder, mouth sullen with anger. Dad looking so concerned, Dean didn't know him.

'You can't do that to me,' Sam had told him. If only he had. Sam would've gotten over it. Let Dean blur into a childhood he wanted so determinedly to forget. He's been keeping his brother on the shore all this time.

His thoughts are ensnaring him. He's choking, strangling, ribs cracking. The bruises crawl into his throat. He has to say goodbye, to that boy with limbs unfolding in startled fear. He has to tell him so many things. All he wants to say is, 'Sammy'.

But he can't speak. And he doesn't know how.

-SPN-SPN-SPN-

Sam wants to hit Dean. No, really. A quick fist to Dean's cheek and a satisfyingly guilty purple shadow to appear slowly on his brother's face. Dean's always bragging about how he'll be 'going out swinging' but this is not any kind of swinging, big brother, you're full of fever and phlegm, and that's just sick. It isn't anything to be proud about.

He should've known Dean would die this way. No, not die, leave him all alone. The kid –Sam likes to secretly call him that when Dean's all fluey and icky- would never just get the flu, he had to end up on drips and nebulisers and oxygen masks, all because he's dramatic. Where did he get such lazy lungs from anyway? It certainly wasn't from Dad. He must've made a deal to give them up in return for something Sam wanted.

Well, he doesn't want this. Dean is so unresponsive, it's unbearable. He's just laying there, freckles angry with fever, barely breathing. Normally, it makes Sam want to sit in a box when Dean behaves fidgety-er than usual –it's actually possible-but now he'd appreciate it if you could please lift your thumb at least, Dean Winchester.

The nurse, who Sam calls nurse, because their all the same to him, tells him to keep calm sir, but she's not being reassuring. They normally say 'he'll be just fine' but now their mouths are square brackets and they keep shaking their heads, as if Dean needs to be reprimanded and Sam's unaware of the crime.

'You've got to stop doing that,' he glares at her, 'stop readjusting everything, just fix him.'

'You should get some rest,' she says. He was trying, in that accursed chair, but then she came in and Dean started coughing like he'd been drowning. He can't rest after that.

Now it's too quiet. Hunting accidents are understandable. There's angst and agony. Sam will wait for Dean to wake up and then read to him from one of those brainy magazines he might've snitched from another patient. Dean's interested in everything, even though he won't admit it. Dean doesn't like admitting anything, even if he's not breathing.

It's the way Dean is, although he can change, if he doesn't intend on dying today.

Sam had always gone through life not liking a certain something along the way. There had to be some sort of problem with that salad or this song. He acted like he was allergic to all of it. He one day decided he didn't like sesame seeds, even though there wasn't a discernible reason for it. Dad told him to shut it, Samuel and be more like Dean.

Dean ordered a burger and chips at every single restaurant. He wore biker boots and dad's leather jacket, which fell over his fingers and dripped off his shoulders. It made the skinny seventeen year old look both tough and somehow vulnerable. It was not a matter of Dean not liking something, it was that he wouldn't like anything besides what he'd told himself was law. So for all the things Sam wouldn't accept, there was only a few which Dean had.

Sam had tried that leather jacket on once. It had fitted him like it had always been his. He'd yanked it off because it was eerie, afraid there were other John Winchester qualities he wore just as well.

So Sam ran, scraped his knees, was nudged back up by his brother, and somehow always managed to reach the end. The world wasn't a good place, but Sam supposed it all evened out because his brother existed. As long as Dean was there, Sam didn't mind much.

Now, Dean wasn't here. Well, he was sitting across from him, but he wasn't Dean. He always felt like the world tilted when Dean wasn't keeping an eye on him. There were new dimensions everywhere and he was wary of being dangerous.

He knows he looks after Dean quite efficiently, but it doesn't mean he likes doing it. He likes being looked after, someone always watching out for him, having his back. That's why Dean always asks him, whenever he wakes up from this or that, 'Sammy, are you okay? I'm so sorry.' As if he's the one who's suffering. And when he wakes in hospital, Dean's bones are made of guilt, even if he had nothing to do with it. 'Sammy, I'm so sorry,' he'll mumble, when he thinks Sam's still asleep.

'You can't look after me if you're asleep,' he says, because that will surely get Dean to wake up somehow. 'Wake up,' he flicks Dean's wrist 'wake up, now.'

Sam thinks of strange things when Dean opens his eyes. Dragon wings crackling. Old books with whispering pages. Windows shattering into shards. Winter winds in the morning.

'Dean,' he clasps his brother's hand. He'll take a rain check on that uppercut.


	6. Chapter 6

Sam used to draw. He wonders about skills that grow from fingers, without order and obedience. He learnt techniques at school, but art class could be too confining in its assignments. He saw the world through eyes far older than his classmates, sometimes even wiser than his teachers. So he sketched his life, werewolves and weapons, and on a never ending adventure, there was always something new. He also tried to draw Dean.

Dean was almost impossible to draw. He was never still, in constant motion, fidgeting, twitching, fixing something only could see. He wouldn't fit in a page, refused to be described by pencil. He was too much, heart spilling all over his freckles, emotions in colors yet unimagined. Sam would watch him intently, trying to understand the nuances of his subject, the sky reflecting of his bruised face, the half-grins when he peeked up from the car bonnet and the white fear of their father.

Dean told him to stop being so creepy.

He bragged that he was easy enough to draw, and it was true. He had a profile sharp enough to be drawn by any amateur, even eyelashes long enough to be their own feature. Sam didn't mean it like that though, he didn't want a street portrait or a police sketch, rather he wanted to define Dean with perfection and precision, _with soul,_ to hold the entirety of Dean on a piece of paper.

He remembered someone once telling him his expectations were unrealistic.

The old sketchbook is still in the trunk, but it doesn't have a single sketch of his brother. He would spend hours on a piece, but then rip the page out, sometimes with tears right through the careful lines, scrunch it up, throw it away. A paper trail of brother to leave with the bloody tracks they left in their wake.

The last time he drew Dean was when he was at school. When he picked up a pencil, it would always somehow revert to the person he couldn't miss because he was part of him, start with those spikes that Dean always styled, even though he acted nonchalant about it, and end with collar of his leather jacket. He kept those, because he hadn't kept his brother, but they got destroyed in the fire.

Sam sections his life by the fires. They have burnt up his destiny.

Dean is only still when he's asleep on a hospital bed. It's the best time to draw him, Sam had once thought, but it was wrong to remember him like that, a portrait of the almost dead. He draws spirals on Dean's arm, hexagons, squares, wants Dean to never ever forget him, to etch a tattoo that says, 'belongs to Sammy Winchester.'

Dean does though. Sam's been subjugated to this chair, so he has earned it.

'Water?' Dean croaks, like there are splinters in his throat, eyes vague and unfocused. Sam has an irrational fear that Dean will forget him when he awakens. It happened once, years ago, when Sam didn't know a world without Dean, and Dean knew one. The drugs had pulled Dean into oblivion so dark and deep, that he woke up asking for mommy, chest hitching until he almost stopped breathing again. He'd stared at Sam, and all Sam had recognized was fear.

Sam holds the glass, while Dean drinks. He looks so sick, it's unfair. He's pale, like he hasn't been in the sun for weeks, and there's still a blue tint to his skin, which is unnatural. Sam isn't racist, but he decides he will be against blue skin.

'Sorry Sammy,' Dean mumbles.

'Don't you ever do that again,' Sam growls, 'you can't, I forbid you.'

'Okay,' Dean says softly, and it unnerves him slightly. Sam knows that when he blows away the cobwebs of static anger and immutable hurt, Dean will give him the world to get his forgiveness. There's nothing he won't smash and conquer. He'll probably kill himself, but that won't matter.

'Why do your lungs always have to be so much trouble?' he sighs tiredly, now that Dean's awake, he wishes he was the one lying comatose, veins full of numbing drugs.

'It was after the fire,' Dean answers, and Sam blinks at him, because he wasn't expecting an answer, and he didn't know that, didn't even know there was a reason, thought it was something random unlucky people were born with, 'there was too much smoke.'

Dean's scars, the ones etched into his being, the ones he cannot see.

One day, Sam lost a bet. He had to tidy up the trunk of the Impala, because they'd been throwing all their stuff in, and that wasn't the way they worked, being almost military. He found one of Dean's old school satchels, and expecting to find bullet cases or a broken knife, a book he secretly really liked, maybe an assignment he was proud of, many girls' numbers and definitely something with fungus, he shook it out.

All his abandoned sketches, to kindle a new fire.

-/-/-

Dean doesn't exactly tell the doctor how he got those injuries. Ma'am, I wrenched my shoulder right out of its socket fighting a wendigo and a supernatural being slammed me into a wall with the force of fighter-jet. She's surprised that he's casual about a dislocated shoulder, because she doesn't know it's happened to him three times already. The pain makes him black out and throw up, and even though he wants to curl himself up into oblivion for days, he's always back in the Impala hours later. He loves his car, really does, but sometimes, he'd like a home where he can peacefully recover.

A few days later, he's got a shovel slung over the same shoulder, ignoring the ache, as usual.

So now it's all caught up with him, the bruised veins spreading right till his spinal cords. She jabs the muscle, because there's a pinched nerve too, and if he doesn't want to go for surgery, he'd better stay in bed.

'You're stressed,' she says, like Dean can switch his life off. Yeah, he is, because everything is his fault, and she can't change that. Good intentions never rued a man, the way they rue him.

'As for your chest,' she pauses dramatically, and Dean wants her to swear, 'you've got an awful infection. You shouldn't wait until you've stopped breathing to get help.'

'You should put couches in these rooms,' he ignores her -doctors are always criticising him, like he deliberately gets ill and needs to be chastised for it- missing Sam already. He told the kid to go and sleep, because he'd been there for hours, but he likes having Sam around him. He rather likes his brother.

Sometimes, there's a secret rational fear he has, whenever Sam leaves, that he won't come back. It's Sam's coping mechanism, his response when he's miffed, when he needs some space or if he wants to make Dean fret when their already late.

Mostly, Dean thinks it's when he's a disappointment. He is sorry, but sometimes he wishes Sam would tell him what was wrong, the way dad did, he's strong, he can take it. It would be preferable to those never-ending resigned sighs, those dark thoughts behind his bangs. Sam will sometimes look at him for the entire drive. It's like sunburn.

And Dean always gets burnt badly.

'Your brother must be a very patient person, to hear you cough endlessly like that,' she shakes her head, 'it would make anyone else leave.'

Dean wonders if he can love Sam some more.

Sam's there when he wakes up, refreshed enough to smile. Dean hasn't seen those dimples in years. He pushes Sam's hair out of his eyes, and Sam swats his hand away. Why would you come back, he wants to ask, when you could find someone who'd make your smiles reach the sun and you wouldn't remember what it felt like to frown.

He sits up and coughs, coughs, trying to squeeze the words of the doctor out of his mind.

'Breathe for me, Dean' Sam says quietly, determinedly, the strength within his voice can control armies.

'I'll try,' he mumbles, because it's hard and his chest aches, and sometimes it aches for different sorts of reasons, that inhalers and oxygen can't fix, and it hurts so desperately. He sounds like a complete loser, but Sam grins, says 'I'll hold you to that,' like he deserves any of it.

'I've got something to show you, officially this time' Sam's got a lot of paper in his hands, 'these are all mine, but their actually all yours. I was going to draw this epic portrait of you and give it you one random day, just because I could.'

He'd picked them up, after Sam threw them away. Some of them were shoddy and some were pretty sharp, but they were all Sam's, and so were all worth something.

'Why me?' he asks, because he doesn't get it.

'You're kind of mine?' Sam raises an eyebrow, like it's an inane question 'that's why?'

Dean thinks of endlessness, universes, trillions and infinities and how they all aren't enough.


End file.
